Kei­tany, Ghe­bres­lassie win NYC Marathon

NEW YORK (AP): ERITREA’S GHIR­MAY Ghe­bres­lassie and Kenya’s Mary Kei­tany won the New York City (NYC) Marathon yes­ter­day.

Kei­tany be­came the first woman to win three straight ti­tles since Grete Waltz won five straight from 1982 to 1986. She pulled away around the 15th mile and fin­ished with an un­of­fi­cial time of 2 hours, 24 min­utes, 26 sec­onds – one sec­ond be­hind her time last year.

Ghe­bres­lassie fin­ished his de­but in New York with a time of 2:7:51.

For most of the course, the men’s field was a three-man race be­tween Ghe­bres­lassie, Kenya’s Lu­cas Rotich, and Ethiopia’s Lelisa De­sisa. By mile 20, Ghe­bres­lassie be­gan grad­u­ally pulling away.

The 20-year-old beat Rotich by 62 sec­onds to be­come the youngest male win­ner in New York. The previous youngest male win­ners were Al­berto Salazar in 1980 and Tom Flem­ing in 1973, both won as 22-year-olds.

De­fend­ing cham­pion Stan­ley Bi­wott of Kenya with­drew at the 10-mile mark with a right calf in­jury. He also dropped out in the Rio Olympics af­ter get­ting sick. Amer­i­can Abdi Ab­di­rah­man placed third. De­sisa, who was the run­ner-up in New York in 2014 and a twotime Bos­ton Marathon win­ner, dropped out at the 22nd mile.

UN­OF­FI­CIAL TIME

Tatyana McFad­den won the women’s wheel­chair race to sweep the four ma­jor marathons for the fourth straight year.

The 27-year-old Amer­i­can fin­ished with an un­of­fi­cial time of 1:47:43. She com­pleted the Grand Slam by win­ning in Lon­don, Bos­ton, Chicago and New York, ex­tend­ing her record streak to 17 straight wins in ma­jor marathons.

McFad­den, who won six medals at the Rio Par­a­lympics, took the lead for good at the 15-mile mark and com­fort­ably led the rest of the course to win for the fifth time in New York.

Mar­cel Hug of Switzer­land won his sec­ond NYC Marathon ti­tle in the men’s race and his sixth marathon this year. He edged Aus­tralia’s Kurt Fearn­ley by sixth-tenths of a sec­ond, re­peat­ing their photo fin­ish at last month’s Chicago marathon.

De­fend­ing cham­pion Ernst Van Dyk of South Africa came in fourth.

Ghir­may Ghe­bres­lassie (cen­tre), Lu­cas Rotich (left) and Lelisa De­sisa run to­gether as they lead the elite men’s race dur­ing the New York City Marathon in New York yes­ter­day. Ghe­bres­lassie won in 2:7:51.